Joseph Lane

Joseph Lane (December 14, 1801 – April 19, 1881) was an American politician and soldier. He was a state legislator representing Evansville, Indiana, and then served in the Mexican–American War, becoming a general. President James K. Polk appointed Lane as the first Governor of Oregon Territory. When Oregon was admitted as a state in 1859, Lane was elected one of Oregon's first two U.S. Senators.

In the 1860 United States presidential election, Lane was nominated for vice president of the pro-slavery Southern wing of the Democratic Party, as John C. Breckinridge's running mate. Lane's pro-slavery views and sympathy for the Confederate States of America in the Civil War effectively ended his political career in Oregon.

One of his sons was later elected U.S. Representative, and a grandson U.S. Senator, making Lane the patriarch of one of the state's most prominent political families.

Early life

Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on December 14, 1801, to a family of English extraction with roots in colonial Virginia.<ref name=PBR>Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon: Containing Biographical Sketches of Many Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co., 1904; pp. 620–621.</ref> His father, John Lane, was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War.<ref name=PBR /> The Lane family moved to Kentucky from North Carolina when Joseph was a young child.<ref name=Bancroft>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lane left home at the age of 15, and was married four years later. He moved to Evansville, Indiana, in 1820.<ref name=Bancroft /> Lane and his wife, Polly Hart Lane, had 10 children.<ref name=Corning>Corning, Howard M. Dictionary of Oregon History. Portland, OR: Binfords and Mort, 1956. p. 142.</ref>

Lane was largely self-educated, learning about the world from books he read at night.<ref name=Bancroft /> During the daytime, he worked and saved his money, investing it shortly in the purchase of a flatboat, with which he transported freight up and down the Ohio River.<ref name=Bancroft /> Financial success followed.<ref name=Bancroft />

Lane was an eloquent public speaker, a talent that helped him to win election to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1822 at the age of just 21.<ref name=Bancroft /> He served in that body from 1822 to 1823, from 1830 to 1833, and from 1838 to 1839.<ref name=UOBio>Helmer, Normandy S. "Historic Photograph Collections: Joseph Lane photographs, 1850s-1903: Biographical Sketch". University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, OR, 2005.</ref> He then moved to the Indiana State Senate, where he served from 1839 to 1840, and from 1844 to 1846.<ref name=UOBio /> Widely esteemed by his peers, Lane was likewise elected as a captain of his local militia while still a young man.<ref name=Bancroft />

Mexican-American War

The Mexican–American War broke out in 1846.<ref name=PBR /> Lane resigned his State Senate seat, and enlisted in a company of Indiana volunteers.<ref name=PBR /> His company was assigned to the 2nd Indiana Volunteer Regiment, and Lane was elected colonel in June 1846. He was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers less than a week later.<ref name=PBR />

Lane and the Indiana troops were then deployed to Mexico where he fought with distinction, suffering two minor gunshot wounds, and was brevetted to major general in 1847.<ref name=PBR /> He commanded the Indiana Brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista, where he served under General and future President Zachary Taylor.<ref name=PBR />

Lane also led the relief force which lifted the Siege of Puebla, defeating Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Huamantla.

File:Governor Lane and Marshal Meek enroute to Oregon.png

En route to Oregon with Joseph Meek, as depicted in Frances Fuller Victor's 1877 book Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.

Oregon territory and statehood

File:Joseph Lane campaign button in 1860, from- Breckinridge-Lane Campaign Items, ca. 1860 (4359372913) (cropped).jpg

Joseph Lane campaign button from 1860

As soon as Lane returned from Mexico, President Polk appointed him governor of Oregon Territory. Lane received his commission on August 18, 1848.<ref name=PBR /> Lane arrived in Oregon on March 3, 1849, following a hazardous winter trip on the Oregon Trail.<ref name=PBR /> Upon reaching Oregon City, Lane's first official act was to initiate the first census of the territory's residents, which showed a total of 8,785 American citizens and 298 citizens of other countries.<ref name=PBR />

While Governor, Lane also served as the first Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs.<ref name=PBR />

Also among Lane's early duties was the apprehension of five Cayuse Indians accused in the Whitman Massacre. The accused were brought back to Oregon City for trial, where they were convicted and hanged.<ref name="obb">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Lane resigned as territorial governor on June 18, 1850, in favor of a new appointee.<ref name=PBR /> On June 2, 1851, Lane was elected Oregon Territory's Delegate in Congress as a Democrat.<ref name=PBR /> In May 1853, he was acting Territorial Governor for three days to assist in the removal of the unpopular John P. Gaines from office. Lane then ran for re-election as Delegate, winning election on June 6, 1853.<ref name=PBR /> Lane won two more terms of office as Delegate in the June elections of 1855 and 1857.<ref name=PBR /> He was subsequently elected as one of Oregon's first two United States Senators when Oregon became a state in 1859.

Military operations against Native Americans

In 1853, after he was re-elected as Delegate, but before he left for Washington, D.C., Lane was appointed as brigadier general commanding a force of volunteers raised to suppress recent Native American violence. Lane led the force to southern Oregon to stop Native American attacks against settlers and miners there.<ref name=PBR /> Lane was again wounded in a skirmish at Table Rock, in Sams Valley, not far from today's cities of Medford and Central Point.<ref name=PBR />

Lane was also an active participant in the so-called Rogue River Wars of 1855–1856,<ref name=PBR /> being wounded in the shoulder at the Battle of Evans Creek.

Vice-presidential nomination and political decline

In 1860, the Democratic Party split on the issue of slavery. Pro-slavery Democrats from the South left the national convention and nominated their own candidates: John C. Breckinridge for president, and Lane for vice president.

This "Southern Democrat" ticket was defeated. With his defeat for vice president and the beginning of the Civil War, Lane's political career ended. His pro-slavery views had been controversial in Oregon; his pro-secessionist views were wholly unacceptable.<ref name="obb"/> Lane became notorious for an exchange with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on his last day in the Senate. Johnson had spoken in favor of the Union and denounced secession. The first referendum out of two on secession in Tennessee failed shortly thereafter, generally credited to Johnson's speech. On March 2, Lane accused Johnson of having "sold his birthright" as a Southerner. Johnson responded by suggesting that Lane was a hypocrite for so accusing Johnson when Lane so staunchly supported a movement of active treason against the United States.<ref>Means, Howard. The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation. Harcourt, 2006, pp. 69–71.</ref>

Later years

File:Mary Pierce "Polly" Hart Lane in 1884 art, from- Mrs. General Joseph Lane (cropped).jpg

Portrait of Polly Hart Lane, Joseph Lane's wife

Lane had taken a land claim of Template:Convert located just north of Roseburg, Oregon, in 1851.<ref name=PBR /> He later purchased a Template:Convert ranch located about Template:Convert east of that town, which he owned for a number of years before selling to a son.<ref name=PBR /> Lane also constructed a home overlooking the South Umpqua River; after his Senate term, he retired there in 1861.<ref name=PBR /> Although openly sympathetic to the Confederate cause, he remained home on his ranch; he did not participate in the war, nor did he make a return to politics after that date.<ref name=PBR /> He has been accused of keeping a personal slave as late as 1878, an assumption based on the race of the African-Indian orphan, named Peter Waldo, he raised from the age of two to seventeen.<ref name="peterwaldo">Template:Cite news</ref> Lane was baptized as a Roman Catholic in 1867,<ref name=nimrod>Lansing, Ronald B. Nimrod: Courts, Claims, and Killing on the Oregon Frontier. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 2005, p. 266.</ref> and his family was reared in the same faith,<ref name="PBR" /> but he renounced that faith shortly before his death.<ref name="obituary">Template:Cite news</ref>

Death and legacy

Lane died at his home on April 19, 1881. His body was interred in the Roseburg Memorial Gardens.

General Lane's daughter's home in Roseburg, where he spent much of his time, is now a museum maintained by the Douglas County Historical Society.<ref name=douglas>Template:Cite web</ref> Known as the Creed Floed House, the Floed–Lane House, or simply the Joseph Lane House, it is on the National Register of Historic Places.<ref name=ORNRHP>Template:Cite web</ref> The Floed-Lane House was never his dwelling place.<ref name=douglas/>

Lane County, Oregon, is named for Lane.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Joseph Lane Middle School in Roseburg is named for him, as is Joseph Lane Middle School in Portland.

Lane's son Lafayette Lane served as U.S. Representative from 1875 to 1877; another son, John Lane, fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy.<ref name=nimrod/> Lane's grandson Harry Lane was a mayor of Portland, Oregon, and then U.S. Senator from 1913 until his death in 1917.<ref name=nimrod/>

Works cited

• Speech of Hon. Joseph Lane, of Oregon, on the Suppression of Indian Hostilities in Oregon: Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 2, 1856. Washington, DC: Congressional Globe Office, 1856.

Further reading

• Hendrickson, James E. Joe Lane of Oregon: Machine Politics and the Sectional Crisis, 1849-1861. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967.
• Si Sheppard. “‘Union for the Sake of the Union’: The Selection of Joseph Lane as Acting President of the United States, 1861.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 115, no. 4 (2014): 502–29. online.

External links

• Template:Find a Grave
• General Joseph Lane at First Hand History, includes primary documents.
• Guide to the Joseph Lane Papers at the University of Oregon The Joseph Lane papers include diaries, correspondence, legal documents, newspaper clippings, and a draft of Nina Lane Faubion's biography of Lane
• Joseph Lane's photographs at the University of Oregon.

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